Alumni gather at Coolidge Elementary for stroll down memory lane

View full sizeAustin Anthony | The Flint JournalSteve Mince, of Durand, Mich., uses a metal detector to search for a buried time capsule in front of Coolidge Elementary in Flint Saturday, which closed this year.

FLINT, Michigan — The hidden mysteries of Coolidge Elementary School will stay buried for now.

Coolidge alumni spanning seven decades and three generations gathered at the school Saturday to say their final goodbyes and try to unearth one of several time capsules believed to be buried at the school over the years.

The school was closed by the Flint School District at the end of the 2010-11 year because of declining enrollment, its students and staff were moved to nearby Cummings Elementary.

“We had a great time. There’s no hard feelings about not finding anything,” said Clio resident Konnie Tabbert, who helped with a 1974 burial in the school's front lawn.

Tabbert and others used a Facebook group to spread the word to other old classmates.

Armed with metal detectors, old photographs and shovels, a crowd of about 30 alumni and a few dozen of their friends and family took to the school’s lawn.

The district gave them the OK to look for the capsules as long as they put back any earth they removed.

But after about an hour — and a false alarm when someone dug up a rusty shovel head — it was beginning to look like hope was lost.

“We dug up a nail and a paper clip,” said 13-year-old Dakota Boxell, who had been digging with his sister, 7-year-old Makayla.

Dakota and Makayla’s mother, Charlet Treloar, attended Coolidge in the early 90s.

Treloar has fond memories of the school, including her sixth grade class trip to the Cedar Point amusement park.

“First time I got to go on a Greyhound bus, I thought that was awesome,” said Treloar, of Flint Township.

View full sizeAustin Anthony | The Flint JournalCharlet Treloar looks inside of a classroom with her children Makayla Boxell (left), 7, and Dakota Boxell, 13, of Flint Township, Mich., in Coolidge Elementary in Flint Saturday, where Treloar went to school from 1984 to 1991.

Looking through the old photos and newspaper articles spread out in the school’s front office, Mark Porter noticed the boy with thick glasses on the page for Miss Krysiar’s sixth grade class in the 1969-70 year.

“That’s my picture right there,” Porter, now 53, said.

The General Motors retiree has lived in the area surrounding Coolidge his whole life.

Time has taken a heavy toll on his neighborhood.

“We didn’t hear no gunshots,” he said of the old days.

Even after cleaning out the last of the school’s memorabilia, there is still no sign of a rumored letter and signed picture of the school’s namesake, President Calvin Coolidge.

If those ever existed, they were likely removed long ago, said Ed Walthers, the school’s most recent principal.

But who has them?

“There’s been a lot of principals that retired from this place,” Walthers said with a laugh. “So you never know.”

View full sizeAustin Anthony | The Flint JournalA crowd watches as Mike Tabbert, of Flint, Mich., looks for a time capsule in front of Coolidge Elementary in Flint Saturday. Tabbert went to the school from 1992 to 1994.